SPI 564: I Sold the SPI Podcast

SPI 564: I Sold the SPI Podcast

Announcer: Welcome to the Smart Passive Income Podcast, where it’s all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your host, he started this podcast when he was 28, and this year he’s turning 40, Pat Flynn.

Pat Flynn: Hey, it’s Pat here. First of all, just want to thank you so, so much for listening to Smart Passive Income. If you happen to be listening on an Apple device right now, this is a really important message. You’re no longer going to be able to listen through Apple Podcasts very soon, because SPI has recently been sold to Spotify. Spotify is going to be an exclusive distributor of the Smart Passive Income—I can’t do this. I’m so sorry. It’s April 1st. Happy April Fool’s. If that got some of you, cool.

Pat Flynn: I don’t know how people can like keep going with that. I just started feeling icky while doing that. Every year it seems like I have ideas for an April Fool’s joke and then we never do it, right? Caleb and I had some fun ideas with the SwitchPod that we just always talk about, but we never do. And then I have some ideas for the Deep Pocket Monster YouTube channel for some stuff, and I just can’t muster up I don’t even want to say the courage. It just doesn’t feel… I don’t know. It’s just not my nature to do that.

Pat Flynn: Anyway, if I fooled some of you, don’t worry, it’ll still be available on the Apple Podcast. I’m still going to be here. All the things are going to remain the same. April Fools’ maybe. The fools on me, right? Jokes on me, because I try that and it didn’t work. But we’re going to keep this in here because I’m authentically trying to see what would happen and it just failed. Anyway, this past week, we had Josh on podcast, Josh Hall from JoshHall.co. He’s been on the show before and I just love his story.

Pat Flynn: And if you’ve listened to that episode, you might be like, “Pat, did you pay this guy to say these things about SPI Pro and about Power-Up Podcasting and your webinar course and all this other stuff?” No, I didn’t. I swear that I did not. That is not an April Fool’s joke. That is the truth. But I want you to understand how powerful it is that when somebody else gets a result from you, they can do a much better job of selling your stuff than you can. Yes, you should still create a sales page or a campaign.

Pat Flynn: Yes, you should understand your analytics and your conversions, your traffic times conversion equals profit, and all this kind of stuff, or equals sales minus expenses equals profit. But it’s really important to understand the power of utilizing somebody else’s story. I’ve talked about this many times before, but we just had a classic, classic episode of the Smart Passive Income Podcast, one that, yes, motivated a lot of people.

Pat Flynn: Yes, that provided some insight on a journey that somebody has had, but also has promoted a lot of the stuff that we create here at SPI without even feeling aggressive or harsh other than, “Wow! This guy talks nonstop about your stuff, Pat. It must be really good.” And again, knowing that Josh was not paid for that should hopefully help you understand just, again, the power of utilizing somebody else’s story.

Pat Flynn: We’ve talked about Donald Miller and StoryBrand, and he talks so, so much about helping your audience become the hero or helping your customer become the hero of the story or your prospect or your lead. They are the hero of the story. You, the creator or the leader, the podcaster, blogger, the email marketer, the creator, like I said that already, you are the guide, right? You are the Yoda to your audience. Who is the Luke Skywalker or Princess Leia? And that’s really important to understand.

Pat Flynn: When it comes to building sales pages and creating campaigns, it’s a lot harder, because we have to still voice our hero. We have to get in their heads. We have to use the words that they would use that the audience would also resonate with. But this is why I love podcasting so much because you essentially have a platform where you can invite a student on to have them tell their story. Now, I’m very fortunate that Josh is an amazing presenter and amazing storyteller and conversationalist.

Pat Flynn: That’s really helpful. I’ve considered bringing other students onto the podcast. And after chatting with them, it’s very apparent that they’re either shy or they just don’t have… You don’t have to be perfect, but you have to be able to talk about what you have gone through or what you were struggling with and the transformation, right? Again, you want to make sure you do your due diligence if you’re going to invite a client or a student onto your podcast or onto a video channel of sorts.

Pat Flynn: I would recommend having a pre-interview session or even just a chat. I wouldn’t even call it a pre-interview session. I wouldn’t even have this person know that they’re going to be interviewed. I would just first want to connect with them to understand how their experience was, to hear it in their own words, to talk about what their transformation was like. And then if, and only if you feel like there’s something powerful there to be able to then invite that person onto a platform to talk about that story a little bit more.

Pat Flynn: I promise you, you likely have way more stories than you even know what to do with, but you just have to find them. And that’s something that we’re working a little bit harder to do at SPI because we have a wide reach. Yet we don’t widely reach those who have succeeded to try to sort of do what I just talked about. I mean, it kind of happens organically, but I think we could do a much, much better job, and I know that you can as well. This is why I’m here talking about this today.

Pat Flynn: I want you to find your own versions of Josh in your audience. You might think that, okay, I need to help a person have this radical transformation. I need to have some life changing storytelling. And that’s absolutely not true. If you have that available, then great. Feature that story not just in your marketing, but bring them on your show and chat with them and talk about that person on stage and have them become a keystone story of something that promotes your work and your message and your mission.

Pat Flynn: No, you don’t need this radical life-changing thing, but you do need a person who can talk about the struggles that they had or the reasons why they were challenged with something related to what it is your product helps with. This relates to the audience that’s listening. This relates to the viewers and the listeners who are also going through the same things.

Pat Flynn: When they hear somebody who’s just like them, that has gone through the same things that they are going through, they’re not yet convinced at this point to purchase, but they are convinced to listen. They are now engaged, and that is a huge, huge thing. Because the first thing when it comes to sales is you got to get a person’s attention, right? If you don’t have a person’s attention, you have nothing. Have a person speak to the audience on your behalf essentially to talk personally about their struggles, their challenges.

Pat Flynn: How do you do that? Well, you ask the right questions. You ask them to tell their story. Tell me about a time when you struggled with trying to start a podcast, right? That is a really great set up, that tell me about a time when blank, and then you just kind of listen or let them talk. And then when they give you an answer, you go deeper. Well, why did you feel like that? Or what happened next? Or what did you try to do, but just didn’t work out?

Pat Flynn: And that’s your role as interviewer when you’re trying to go deeper into the struggles and pains of your audience. Because ultimately, if you dig deep enough, it’s going to be exactly the same thing that your listener or viewer or, in many cases, your prospect or lead is going through as well. Again, that’s the attention-grabbing part of this.

Pat Flynn: Then the job is to talk about the future, their future, the listener’s future, the viewer’s future, by painting a picture through what your client or student is living through now, what transformation has occurred, and what is life like now on the other end.

Pat Flynn: Because think about it, when you paint a picture of before and that before matches your audience, and then you paint a picture of after, and then a person listening or viewing has seen a person just like them now living in a future state that they also want to live to, guess now what is happening psychologically to the listener or viewer or the prospect or lead? They are now wanting to fill in that gap. This is gap theory. This is the before and after. Okay, how did you do that? Right?

Pat Flynn: “Make socks plus blank equals profits.” What’s the blank? This is a classic meme situation that I’m talking about. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry. But they had the before, they resonate with that, you’ve captured their attention. Now the after, this is what they want. This is what they’re leading to. They see somebody who’s just like them who’s in the same position now having gone through those struggles and challenges, now having unlocked the new life on the other end.

Pat Flynn: And again, it doesn’t have to be radically life-changing. It just might be something has become more convenient or has taken less time or has opened up for them finally or they’ve created something that they have never created before. Then the prospect will want to go through the same process too, right? Big thank you to Josh for coming on last week or this past episode, in episode 563, where he talked about the three-phase approach that doubled his revenue.

Pat Flynn: What an amazing story and things that he’s doing now to increase his revenue. I mean, there’s so much more that we can unpack there, but I highly recommend you listen to that if you haven’t already. A forewarning, Josh does talk a lot about the success that he’s gained through his work at SPI with SPI Pro. If you want to check that out, spipro.com. With Power-Up Podcasting, you could check that out at poweruppodcasting.com.

Pat Flynn: But here’s the thing, if you don’t have one of these platforms that are much larger, that you can go deeper with, you likely have access to a platform. It could be even as small as TikTok. And by small, I don’t mean the size of the platform, because the platform is huge, but by the bite sized size of the content, the bite sized size of the content or length of the content. You can tell some amazing before and after stories. I remember on TikTok there’s a number of different two minute videos that I watch where a person…

Pat Flynn: They don’t even tell me what’s going on. They just get right into the story. And of course, I have to know what happening, and so I got to stick around. What happens on TikTok is the algorithm sees that a lot of people are watching these “longer form” videos on TikTok. Although that being said, I did see a message somewhere that TikTok was going to increase the length of their videos to up to 10 minutes now, which I think it’s like two or three right now. Anyway, that’s a different thing.

Pat Flynn: Man, the dichotomy between TikTok and YouTube and that competition, YouTube coming up on shorts and now TikTok coming up on longer form videos. It is just absolutely fascinating. Anyway, these stories, they capture attention. They hold people’s attention, and then that triggers the algorithm. Because they know that the more people who see this video, the more people who are going to stay on longer. Same thing kind of happens YouTube as well.

Pat Flynn: The hook in the beginning or just diving right into it, if you do any YouTube videos or even any podcasting, try skipping the formality of the intro and just go right into the story. Test that. Try that out and see what happens. And if you can start telling a story faster and then helping create intrigue and curiosity faster, I promise you, you’re going to get higher retention rates and more people’s attention upfront.

Pat Flynn: When you combine this with the success stories that you are creating, whether this is a story that you tell on TikTok or Instagram Reels or even in a post on Facebook, which you’ve probably come across, very transformational stories that people have told about themselves on Facebook as well. It doesn’t matter. What matters is, what example are you setting through that story and how might a person resonate with that? So really think about that.

Pat Flynn: I challenge you to get those stories out there and to tell the stories of the students that you have. If you don’t have those success stories yet, why not? Why not? It’s the best way to grow community is to host and display and portray the successful students and clients that you have to others. Nothing works better. It’s so simple. Why do we have to worry so much about these crazy campaigns and funnels and all these things? And yes, all those things are important and they do work.

Pat Flynn: But when you just go, okay, if this were simple, what would it look like, to quote Tim Ferris? Well, I would just tell stories of the people we’ve helped to help encourage more people to get the same help, which would then in turn create more stories. Okay, well, thank you for listening in today. I hope this encourages you. This might be the message that you needed to hear.

Pat Flynn: Because of all the marketing practices out there, this one is definitely one of the ones that every business should be focusing on no matter what their business model is. No matter what it is that they’re offering, digital, physical, doesn’t matter. Stories, stories, stories. Spipro.com. Anyway, thank you so much. I appreciate you, and I look forward to serving you in the next episode. By the way, speaking of SPI Pro, I’m looking at the date that this will be published.

Pat Flynn: This will be a perfect time to go and apply to SPI Pro, because we are going to be increasing the price mid-year. This next enrollment period maybe the last time that you can get it at this lower price. We’ve kept it at this low price for two years. We wanted to make sure we experimented, tested, fine tuned, optimized, and now we understand the true value that there is to offer here. We’re putting a lot more team and resources and time and money into SPI Pro. We have to raise a price point.

Pat Flynn: It’s going to be amazing because we’re going to put even more into it. I hope that you get in while you can now. And even if you get in later, it’s still of high value. Absolutely. It’s still a steal for what it is and the feedback that we’ve been getting. We verified that. But anyway, spipro.com. Go and apply now and look forward to seeing you there. This is the last time the price is going to be at the low price that you’ll see there on the page and look forward to seeing you in there and making sure it’s the right fit.

Pat Flynn: Because you will go through an application process, it’s like the first filter, to see if it’s right for you and if we are right for you. Not just if you’re right for us, but if we are right for you. And if it’s not a match, then it’s not time and that’s okay. But it’s important to know that now and not just like dive in, but to understand that this is right for you. It’s been right for hundreds of people who’ve gone through and are in there and are waiting for you to join too and be a part of the community.

Pat Flynn: I hope that you’ll join. Thank you so much. Spipro.com. I look forward to seeing you soon. Cheers. Thanks so much. And as always, Team Flynn for the win.

Pat Flynn: Thanks for listening to the Smart Passive Income Podcast at smartpassiveincome.com. I’m your host, Pat Flynn. Our senior producer is Sara Jane Hess. Our series producer is David Grabowski, and our executive producer is Matt Garland. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. The Smart Passive Income Podcast is a production of SPI Media. We’ll catch you in the next session.